Post your thoughts/ideas/musings on global poverty and climate change for Policywonk - Mumsnet's blogger at the G20 summit...

wanted to go demonstrate in london today but dp reluctant so got on with the washing up..

for a minute considered putting the dds in nursery on weds and heading to a 'street party' outside the bank of england instead of going to work..

accepted the fact that demonstating in person is not easy with two kids (i thought it was just dancing that was a thing of the past!)

read this thread (its 2.34am), feel better...nice one policy wonk - its great to know we have an insider!

think focus on maternal health is excellent btw love the potent combination of low and high brow issues

Thanks sputnik. I agree about either/or and political will.

I'm going to be away from the computer tomorrow but will be back to check the thread on Saturday.

Congratulations on getting this job Policywonk, I look forward to reading the blog.

I would really like to know to what extent it's going to be business as usual at the summit in the light of recent economic upheavals, and how far the need for tighter regulation is going to be recognised.

And I can't read the discussion here of Bjorn Lomborg go without putting in my 2 pence worth: what really, really annoys me about his view is, why does it have to be an either/or argument? C02 emmissions need to be addressed now on all fronts, but why should that stop us from addressing malaria, AIDS, planning for relocation etc etc?

When you look at what has been spent on Iraq (to protect supplies of C02 producing fossil fuels) the resources required to properly fund research into clean energy, or burying C02, or, for that matter, mosquito nets to protect from malaria, look like peanuts. What is lacking is political will, and people like Lomborg only provide policy makers with another excuse not to address global warming.

Lomborg's work has also been found to be full of factual errors.

(Italics - you have to put the chevrons either side of every single word you want to italicise - can't do it for big blocks of text unfortunately.)

Oooh hello toddlerama. Will have a look.

Depressing story today that the US Congress is going to be reluctant to sign up to the climate change treaty due to be negotiated in Copenhagen towards the end of this year. It seems Obama's not prepared to risk too much political capital on it.

Some European countries had actually been hoping that the US would pass some carbon-reduction legislation before Copenhagen, but that's looking very unlikely now. US Democrats are more interested in passing legislation to promote alternative energy sources, but without any binding targets.

Sorry my italics didn't work. I don't know why.

I really, really want you to bring up the Nestle thing. Try and shoe horn it in with reference to the UN Declaration on Human Rights cos they've all signed it.

^Article 25.

• (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
• (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.^

Soooooo the govs that allow Nestle in to distribute have to pay to keep providing the milk in a particularly desperate interpretation of Art 25(2), or just not let them distribute in the first place.

A baby could fall into subsection 1 as possessing a lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control and therefore has a right to security re. food.

Anyway, if you want to bring it up, there is a signed declaration there to wave in faces stroppily.

Please, please, please do a comb over count.

Hey! We've been re-stickied!

Everyone look busy.

Well you've got to hand it to those donkey-porn people, at least they take an interest.

trouble is, people will go on there offering you garden-gnome-goes-with-donkey porn so you have to moderate

I've forgotten how to do links

Aren't you going to tell me how to do links, MP?

I was a bit stunned to find we moderate posts on our blogs. I'd got so used to MN's free-speakin' ways that I wasn't expecting it. Was rather expecting legions of people to leave me rude messages.

nah he's too young and skinny for me

YES PLEASE. Am total blog ingenue.

I think you'll find Barack's ass has already been, um, covered, justa.

Do you know, I don't fancy him. Should I see my GP?

someone needs to teach you to do LINKS on that blog of yours

policywonk blog

In the MN blogs bit.

I wouldn't advise reading the whole thread tbh. Do let me know if you have a personal message for Barack though, as obv. I'm going to be spending a lot of time with him.

where is the blog?

(you don;t think I have read this whole thread, do you? )

Hello pointy. Ta.

Look at the blog, look at the blog... la la la

just seen this - good for you, wonks

Just like to say that anyone who knew me in RL would now be ROFL at the thought of me and SW!
It is possible to critique the current state of affairs without proposing such crude solutions. That's why I'm interested in the anti capitalist stance, to see if they have an actual route map for getting out of this mess.
I don't think it's self hatred to be prepared to countenance a more modest life style. Current european consumption is only possible for everyone on the earth if we had 3 earths to live on....which we clearly don't...and I don't see what entitles us to more than our fair share.
That, plus climate change is the pressing problem.
that's all!
off to check out your blog, pw.

Nooooo, don't remember the spaceship

By the way folks (cos there are thousands of you reading this, aren't there?), I've set up an MN blog now for the G20 stuff. I'm going to put some links up on there to some of the people and sites that look interesting.